Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car

Daily Mail ^ | 10/23/2017 | By BARBARA JONES

[SeekAndFind]

Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car: Awful human cost in squalid Congo cobalt mine that Michael Gove didn’t consider in his ‘clean’ energy crusade

• Sky News investigated the Katanga mines and found Dorsen, 8, and Monica, 4
• The pair were working in the vast mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo
• They are two of the 40,000 children working daily in the mines, checking rocks for cobalt

Picking through a mountain of huge rocks with his tiny bare hands, the exhausted little boy makes a pitiful sight.

His name is Dorsen and he is one of an army of children, some just four years old, working in the vast polluted mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where toxic red dust burns their eyes, and they run the risk of skin disease and a deadly lung condition. Here, for a wage of just 8p a day, the children are made to check the rocks for the tell-tale chocolate-brown streaks of cobalt – the prized ingredient essential for the batteries that power electric cars.

And it’s feared that thousands more children could be about to be dragged into this hellish daily existence – after the historic pledge made by Britain to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2040 and switch to electric vehicles.

It heralds a future of clean energy, free from pollution but – though there can be no doubting the good intentions behind Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s announcement last month – such ideals mean nothing for the children condemned to a life of hellish misery in the race to achieve his target.

[caligatrux]

When you break it down and look at all the components over the life of the car, electric cars are much, much worse for the environment than gas cars.

[catnipman]

“Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car”

so worth it though,if we can burn more coal and build more nuke plants to power all of those tens of millions of ‘lectric cars.

[FreedomOfExpression]

Look, there are some jobs only little hands can do. SO they play in the dirt all day?

You forgot your sarcasm tag.

[The_Media_never_lie]

British colonialism ended way two early. Africa wasn’t ready for self rule.

[ctdonath2]

Spare me the regurgitated guilt trip.

We went thru the same “child labor! you’re evil because you force kids to do X so you can have Y!” crap with sneakers and other products.

Yes, child labor is vile.
The tragic reality of pulling a 3rd-world culture out of its hell hole is the creation of incentives to _produce_. Starting with nothing more than scraping sparse sustenance off the crust of the land, foreign demand for domestic resources finds value in what’s under/behind that crust and in the labor required to acquire it. This typically begins with abusive labor - which despite its dank awfulness is literally an improvement over competing for rare water & berries. The awfulness of such labor gives way to the discovery (carrot-and-stick type) that better conditions produce more wealth. Conditions improve, income improves, opportunities improve. Eventually the mundane laborer lives in conditions once considered palatial by prior residents.

In no way do I condone abusive forced child labor.
Objectively, I do note that it is an improvement, and an early step to bringing a culture to far better living & economic conditions.

Don’t guilt trip me over electric cars.
I like them.
And research for my next one will include “what were the conditions for acquiring the cobalt used?”, facilitating a chain of events that will make life in Congo much better.
I like my sneakers too. Conditions for making them is now way better than what they were; should I instead have always opted for, say, homemade sandals?

[ctdonath2]

This - forced child labor mining cobalt - is a very real problem.
But the solution isn’t “stop buying electric cars” (as if all those cell phones & other rechargeable-battery devices don’t use cobalt too), it’s “do you ethically source your cobalt?” Yeah, sounds stupid, but conditions will shape up fast when money streams dry up because the workers are treated badly, routed to others who got the hint first.

[TheConservativeTejano]

Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car

The Globalists love "Tesla" since they make electric cars but they never ever look at the damage they do to other countries by exploiting not only slave labor but child labor.

These folks have zero morals!

[SkyDancer]

And we had ours that went way back:

[plain talk]

If one were to throw this in Al Gore’s face — he would say this is why we need carbon taxes and global taxes so these people have a “working wage” or whatever -— blah, blah, blah.

No matter what problem or issue - the answer is always more socialism and communism with those people.

[wbarmy]

The actual guilt trip is that this is cheaper for the manufacturer, so they buy the cobalt from there. The DRC has along history of enslaving its people for whatever money they can get.

There are other sources, but the producers would rather pay the cheaper price. Except for Apple who banned buying from there.

[ctdonath2]

“Except for Apple who banned buying from there.”

And that’s my point. Customers start getting picky, and capitalism responds by improving working conditions.

[Delta 21]

.......in them old cobalt fields back home....

[ichabod1]

Typical third world situation - we have no machines but we have plenty of children.

[Tzimisce]

Oh yeah?

Well your a racist.

[2ndDivisionVet]

My father was a “hired man” at Richard’s age who sent money back to his family so they could eat. That was in this country, not in Africa.

[SandRat]

I, lol, think it sounds like something from an Indiana Jones Movie or something taken from the Pinocchio Story.

[treetopsandroofs]

“where is the OUTRAGE from children’s advocacy groups?”

Same place as the women’s advocacy groups — Eating pizza, starring in Harvey Weinstein videos and working overtime to destroy Trump.

[Myrddin]

My great grandfather worked in the lead mine at ysbty Ystwyth, Wales from age 5 to 11. He milked the cows, then walked about 5 miles from Lllanfihangl-y-Creuddyn to work in the mine. He earned the equivalent of 90 cents in 2017 US Dollars for that labor. At age 11, he was too big to get into the mine, so he was assigned work as a shepherd raising sheep to support the family shoe business as well as providing wool and meat to the locals. At age 16, he beat up the foreman and escaped to Liverpool. At age 18, he signed up as "ship's company" on a ship bound for the USA. He arrived in 1863. His sweetheart from Aberystwyth had moved to America before he made his way there. To impress her father, he joined the Union Army. Boot camp way conducted on a railcar on the way to the Civil War battle lines. He was out a mere 2 weeks when his unit was captured by the Confederates. He spent 2 years in that Confederate prison. He survived and was freed in 1865 as the war ended. He married his sweetheart and raised 19 children. My grandfather and his twin brother were the youngest born in 1887.

Escaping essentially slave labor in Wales enabled my great grandfather and his posterity to prosper. The story reported here is a modern day version of what my own family escaped. I've visited Ysbty Ystwyth and found my great-great grandfather's house still standing. He and his wife both succumbed to tuberculosis and my great grandfather and his sisters became wards of their "Uncle Dave" in Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn. I've been to that village as well. The cemetery has headstones with the family surname back to the 1400's that are still legible.

[the_daug]

I used to pick strawberries, pole beans and other produce in Oregon. There were family’s that worked together. The boys are working with their father. 205 year since David Livingston and Africa needs Jesus even more than ever.